Conversational Marketing Blog features BJ Cook's insights on digital marketing strategies and social media. As customer experiences cross over from web to mobile to offline; we assess who gets it and who needs some help.

Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Depending on your religion your holiday may not be over yet. Hanukkah, known as the Festival of Lights or Festival of Dedication, is an eight day Jewish holiday that starts in December or, sometimes, late November. As some of you may know Hanukkah is currently on Day 3 where they will be lighting the 4th candle (thanks to Jason Bass for the clarification). So why is this important to note for Search Marketing? Well because people are still shopping online. Christmas may be over, but the percentage of the people on earth who are observing Hanukkah may still be shopping online, trying to scramble some last minute or belated gifts together for their loved ones. I've noticed some purchases of holiday items recently for ornaments and gift related items. So someone is trying to get their gifts together still or they've already started shopping for 2006. Whoeve they may be, review your current keyword strategies for paid campaigns and refine them to align for the continued influx of holiday shoppers. Happy Hanukkah!

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Come on it doesn't get any better than this, winning prizes just for using their search technology? Seems too easy huh? Well being that I'm in lovely San Diego and these guys are based out of Cali, I've got to support them out of geographic loyalty.Here are some details from their site:How does it work?

It's simple:

1. We pick a bunch of random winning times.

2. Search at the right time and you win, instantly. No registration required.

3. Then tell us where to send the prize.

Clicking search results or sponsored links does not increase your chances of winning, and you're limited to 10 qualifying searches per day. The best way to win on Blingo is just to use it whenever you want to search the web.

Friday, December 02, 2005

Soccer moms are about to have their world turned upside down and I'm not talking about their pineapple cake, we're talking mobile marketing! Not only will they continue to monitor their kid's cellphone usage, minutes, etc; now they have to deal with an onslaught of paperless coupons. Read about this below.

Bringing the cell phone into a multi-channel marketing strategy, communications technology company Twelve Horses and Mobile Technology Group have launched a service that lets retailers deliver mobile text coupons that can be redeemed in stores or online.

David LaPlante, CEO of Twelve Horses, said the coupon service is starting to be deployed in Europe and is under consideration in the U.S. by two apparel retailers and one music merchant. “The technology has definitely hit a nerve,” he tells InternetRetailer.com.

LaPlante adds that the cell phone-delivered coupons – which appear as alpha-numeric text messages that can be entered onto a retail web site, spoken into a voice-recognition system, or simply shown to a store retailer – are expected to be particularly popular with young people accustomed to text-messaging. “These teens and tweens don’t necessarily have a desktop computer to receive e-mailed coupons, but they use cell phones and they can show mom and dad how to use text message coupons,” he says.

Retailers as well as other marketers are expected to deploy the cell phone coupon service as part of broader marketing strategies that include e-mail marketing and other forms of advertising, LaPlante says.

He adds that the cell phone coupons are intended for consumers who opt-in to receiving them after shopping at merchant. “The mobile communications market won’t make the mistake of e-mail and telemarketing with non-permission marketing tactics,” he says.